5/19/07 Enroute to Williamsburg

After our visit to the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge yesterday, we drove back to Cape Hatteras National Seashore and spent the night at the Oregon Inlet campground. Today we travel north to visit Williamsburg and Jamestown.

As we passed through Nags Head we saw many more houses up on stilts.

We passed by the naval shipyard at Norfolk. They were working on an aircraft carrier.

5/18/07 Visiting Alligator River

It was a cloudy, breezy day. We decided to make a side trip to the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge on the North Carolina mainland. On the way north on Hatteras Island, we passed some houses that had big sand drifts in their front yards. There had been a coastal storm a week or so before we arrived and it had blown a lot of sand from the beach across the island in this area. All of the houses on the island are raised on stilts for protection against flooding from hurricanes.
Must have been quite a job to plow out the driveway for this home.


There was a very nice nature trail at the Alligator River Nature Center. The trail went through a swampy area and was all on boardwalk. One of the first things we noticed were the Bald Cypress trees, which we had never seen before. These trees have "knees" that come up from their roots and stick up out of the water.

There were some beauiful flowers along the trail. This is a Yellow Iris.

This one is a Blue Iris.

These beautiful bell-shaped flowers were on long stems that came from vines that climbed the bushes. The leaves on the vines and the vines themselves looked like a type of Clematis.

A portion of the trail went along the side of a small pond or stream, with a lot of Duckweed floating on the surface. It looked like the water was slowly flowing, carrying the Duckweed and some of the floating plants along with it.

There were also some ferns with pretty brown seed heads growing alongside the trail.

5/17/07 Heading North

The weather was pretty wild last night. Just before the sun set, the wind started blowing very hard, making us happy to be in the motorhome. The campers around us who were in tents were all adding stakes and extra tiedown ropes to keep their tents from blowing down. This morning all is quiet again, but it is much warmer and more humid. We decided that it is time to move to a campground with electricity so we will be able to run the air conditioner. Before leaving, we took one last, although short, walk on the beach. This is definitely a place that we will return to.

We found a Ghost Crab that was too far away to duck into his hole. Doesn't he look brave with that big finger pointing at him?

On the ferry heading back to Hatteras Island.

An alien space ship had landed in these people's front yard! It really is true that you can never get a clear picture of a UFO!


We spent the afternoon and night at Ocean Waves campground in the village of Waves. It was time to refill the fresh water and empty the waste tanks. The air conditioning felt good too. We set up the satellite antenna so we could watch TV. Boy, this sure beats the tent camping that we had done in the past!

5/16/07 Ocracoke Island - Day 3

In our walks over the dune to the beach and also along the beach we had noticed numerous small tunnels that had been dug in the sand by some sort of animal. This morning, we discovered who the tunnel diggers were - Ghost Crabs. Several of them had their holes under and around the picnic table in our campsite. We watched them going in and out of the holes and picking something up off the ground to eat (ants maybe?).

We went to Ocracoke Village and stopped to see the Ocracoke Lighthouse. It looked like it had recently been painted.

The infamous pirate Blackbeard was caught and killed just off shore of Ocracoke Island.

We had lunch at the Jolly Roger so we could enjoy watching the Pelicans again. We then went back to the campground and went for another beach walk. We came across these strange marks in the sand. Perhaps the bubbles in the sea foam had picked up some sand that had stayed behind when the bubbles burst?

The tide was coming in and we noticed that air was bubbling up out of the sand at the edge of the incoming waves. We decided that the most likely cause was air coming up from the Ghost Crab tunnels that were being flooded by the waves.

5/15/07 Ocracoke Island - Day 2

We took a walk on the beach this morning to see what we could find. At the top of the dune we saw a very well camouflaged grasshopper. Do you see him?

What a beautiful, uncrowded beach!

We took a picture of this bird so we could identify him later when we got back to the motorhome. He turned out to be a Black-bellied Plover.

The ocean is just beautiful today and the water is warm enough to go swimming.

After lunch we decided to walk the nature trail across from the campground. The trail is a loop through the forested area on the Bay side of the island. We had to be really careful to avoid the poison ivy that was growing along the edge of the trail in many areas.

Most of the trees were Loblolly Pines, which have needles about 6 inches long.

The trail came out on this nice view over the Pamlico Bay.

5/14/07 Ocracoke Island - Day 1

Today we headed south to the town of Hatteras to catch the ferry to Ocracoke Island. The ferry ride is about 40 minutes long and is very enjoyable. Here we are arriving at the ferry terminal on Ocracoke.

Ocracoke Island is 12 miles long and very narrow, with only one road running the length of the island from the ferry terminal to the small village of Ocracoke. With the exception of the village, the entire island is preserved as a part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. We stopped at the National Seashore campground to reserve a site for the night and then went to the village to have lunch at the Jolly Roger restaurant. They have a covered porch next to the harbor. It is very entertaining to watch the Brown Pelicans that use the nearby pilings as perches.


After lunch we went back to the campground. Here's a picture of our site from the top of the dune that separates the campground from the beach.

We relaxed for a while in our folding chairs on the top of the dune.

What a beautiful beach!

At the end of the day we had a beautiful sunset to enjoy, a perfect end to the day.

5/13/07 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Today we headed south to visit the famous Hatteras Lighthouse. At 200 feet, this is the tallest brick lighthouse in the country. It was originally built in 1870 about 1,500 feet inland from the ocean. Unfortunately, the Outer Banks islands are slowly moving westward and by 1999 the lighthouse was near the water's edge and in danger of falling into the sea. It was decided to relocate the lighthouse about 1/2 mile southwest, where it would be about 1,800 feet from the ocean. The pictures show the lighthouse in its new location and also the original location, which is marked by a circle of large stones.


We took a short walk on the beach near the old lighthouse foundation. It was a really windy day, with the sand blowing along the beach. We watched some windsurfers and caught a really great shot of one of them "getting some air". He must have been at least 10 feet above the water.

On our way out, we passed this turtle guarding the entrance road to the lighthouse.

We drove a short way south to the National Seashore's campground at Frisco. There were only a few other campers there and we picked out a great campsite at the top of a hill with a nice view of the ocean.

We went for a walk on the beach next to the campground and saw a number of small birds probing the sand with their bills looking for food. This one found something tasty.

Here's the view out of our window as the sun was setting.